Photo from Flickr courtesy of Naveen Roy

We didn’t go see the fireworks at Baloon Fiesta Park this year.  A friend invited us over to their house for a birthday party.  As it turns out the fireworks in our neighborhood are just as good, but not as choreographed as a professional show.

So, in a time when gas prices are rising, food prices are rising, and the media tells us people are making do without, why do those who live in the most impoverished neighborhood in Albuquerque have the money to spend on something that could never be justified as necessary?  I say it’s obvious those around me still have discretionary income.  They economy can’t be all that bad.  I’m sure that in my four block neighborhood several thousand dollars went up in smoke, literally.

Oh, and as a side note it turns out that everything I could see or hear was in fact illegal because Albuquerque city code only allows fireworks that launch no higher than 10 feet, no wider than 6 feet, and are no louder than a cap gun.  Looking out over the city, you wouldn’t know it.  I was amazed how someone on every street in the city can have such disregard for the law.  It must be a conscious decision to break the law because one has to venture out to the indian reservations to buy these illegal fireworks, they only sell the legal fireworks within the city.  They do make an effort to crack down on this blatant disregard for the law.  Our friends neighbors on both side were visited by the police and had their fireworks confiscated.  I promise I didn’t call!